Get live train status using Python

Last Updated : 17 May, 2022

Suppose you want to travel to places using Indian Railways and have booked a train. But you are not sure that the train is on time or not and doing this manually can be very hectic. So in this article, we are going to write a Python script to get live train status using a train name or train code.

Modules needed

bs4: Beautiful Soup(bs4) is a Python library for pulling data out of HTML and XML files. This module does not come built-in with Python. To install this type the below command in the terminal.

pip install bs4

requests: Request allows you to send HTTP/1.1 requests extremely easily. This module also does not come built-in with Python. To install this type the below command in the terminal.

pip install requests

Let’s see the stepwise execution of the script.

Step 1: Import all dependence

Python3

# import module 
# import pandas as pd 
import requests 
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

Step 2: Create a URL get function

Python3

# user define function  
# Scrape the data  
def getdata(url):  
    r = requests.get(url)  
    return r.text

Step 3: Now merge the train name into URL and pass the URL into the getdata() function and Convert that data into HTML code.

Note: Strongly recommended you to get Train name and code from here. Click

Python3

# input by geek 
train_name = "03391-rajgir-new-delhi-clone-special-rgd-to-ndls"
  
# url 
url = "https://www.railyatri.in/live-train-status/"+train_name 
  
# pass the url 
# into getdata function 
htmldata=getdata(url) 
soup = BeautifulSoup(htmldata, 'html.parser') 
  
# display html code 
print(soup)

Output:

Step 4: Traverse the live status from the HTML document.

Python3

# traverse the live status from 
# this Html code 
data = [] 
for item in soup.find_all('script', type="application/ld+json"): 
    data.append(item.get_text()) 
  
# convert into dataframe 
df = pd.read_json (data[2]) 
  
# display this column of 
# dataframe 
print(df["mainEntity"][0])

Output:

{‘@type’: ‘Question’, ‘name’: ‘Q) Where is my train (03391) RGD NDLS HUMSFR ?’,
‘acceptedAnswer’: {‘@type’: ‘Answer’, ‘text’: ‘A: 03391 RGD NDLS HUMSFR is 10 kms to VARANASI JN (312 kms Covered so far). It is expected to reach New Delhi by 02:30.’}}

Step 5: Now get the required data from this directory.

Python3

print(df["mainEntity"][0]['name']) 
print(df["mainEntity"][0]['acceptedAnswer']['text'])

Output:

Q) Where is my train (03391) RGD NDLS HUMSFR ?
A: 03391 RGD NDLS HUMSFR is 10 kms to VARANASI JN (312 kms Covered so far). It is expected to reach New Delhi by 02:30.

Full implementation:

Python3

# import module 
import requests 
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup 
import pandas as pd 
  
# user define function 
# Scrape the data 
def getdata(url): 
    r = requests.get(url) 
    return r.text 
  
# input by geek 
train_name = "03391-rajgir-new-delhi-clone-special-rgd-to-ndls"
  
# url 
url = "https://www.railyatri.in/live-train-status/"+train_name 
  
# pass the url 
# into getdata function 
htmldata = getdata(url) 
soup = BeautifulSoup(htmldata, 'html.parser') 
  
# traverse the live status from 
# this Html code 
data = [] 
for item in soup.find_all('script', type="application/ld+json"): 
    data.append(item.get_text()) 
  
# convert into dataframe 
df = pd.read_json(data[2]) 
  
# display this column of 
# dataframe 
print(df["mainEntity"][0]['name']) 
print(df["mainEntity"][0]['acceptedAnswer']['text']) 

Output:

Q) Where is my train (03391) RGD NDLS HUMSFR ?
A: 03391 RGD NDLS HUMSFR is 6 kms to VARANASI JN (316 kms Covered so far). It is expected to reach New Delhi by 02:30.

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